BOWLING GREEN, Va. — Energy drinks, coffee and even talking on his cellphone weren’t enough to keep bus driver Kin Yiu Cheung awake after a night on the road.
About an hour before dawn, nearly seven hours into his shift, Cheung dozed off as his bus carrying 59 passengers barreled northward on Interstate 95 in Virginia on May 31, according to court documents.
The bus veered off the highway. When Cheung tried to swerve back onto the road, the bus hit an embankment and overturned, authorities say. Four passengers were killed and dozens more injured.
Attorneys for Cheung, who remains in jail without bail, have called the wreck a “tragic accident.” Prosecutors have charged Cheung, 37, of Flushing, N.Y., with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
But sleep scientists, safety advocates and labor leaders say the roots of the accident lie with an industry whose economic model often results in drivers on the road with too little rest and at hours when their bodies naturally crave sleep.
“The consequence is an entire industry populated by people not getting enough sleep,” said Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents drivers at Greyhound and other companies.
Studies show that between 13 percent and 31 percent of commercial vehicle crashes are due to driver fatigue, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Sky Express Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., which employed Cheung to drive from North Carolina to New York, had been cited for 46 violations involving driver fatigue rules over two years.
Passengers on the bus that crashed overheard Cheung complaining in a cellphone call that he was tired and that he didn’t have much turn-around time between trips, according to a court affidavit.
Federal officials were in the process of shutting down the company at the time of the crash.
Bus industry officials say motor coaches have a good safety record. The popularity of motor coach travel has soared over the past decade, in part because it is relatively inexpensive.
The industry transports an estimated 750 million passengers annually in the U.S.
